I base this on a declaration made by Mayor Walter Sendzik last week during a sitdown with The Standard’s Karena Walter.

One of the topics at hand was what the city should do with a $4-million windfall created when the plug was pulled on the proposed Shickluna hydroelectric plant.

Sendzik made the reasonable argument that the city shouldn’t just sit on the cash, asserting there were important initiatives, notably affordable housing, that could be propelled forward with a portion of the Shickluna money.

More perplexing and perhaps worrisome was his suggestion city council should allocate some of the hydro dollars towards an outdoor destination pool. According to Sendzik, council made a commitment to building such a facility when it closed aging, underutilized outdoor pools in 2015.

Huh?

The idea that council made a commitment, promise, guarantee, pledge or undertaking to build an uncosted, ill-defined, destination (whatever that means) pool is dubious at best.

Pool politics came to the fore a couple of years ago, propelled by a recreation master plan and a new city council anxious to show budget-making wouldn’t be business as usual.

The master plan cast aspersion on the city’s outdoor pools, essentially calling them relics from the 1960s. They were little used during a short season and would cost an arm and a leg to bring up to modern standards. The city would be better off to close them and build splash pads, instead.

The master plan also commented on the prospect of the city building a new outdoor pool, one that, if developed, should have “heated water, interactive waterplay elements, viewing areas, etc.”

“A redevelopment of this magnitude should be supported by a comprehensive business plan that identifies, at a minimum, target market to be served (including whether a pool is intended to function as a regional destination), the optimal design and placement within the park (through an architectural/engineering analysis), the short and long-term capital costs of reinvestment and the estimated operating costs.”

During 2015 budget sessions, though, there was little, if any, talk of a destination pool. Rather, a majority of councillors spoke about how the concept of traditional, municipal outdoor pools was antiquated, rendered increasingly irrelevant by the proliferation of air-conditioning and private backyard pools over the past few decades. Plus, the new Kiwanis Aquatics Centre could accommodate displaced outdoor swimmers.

As a sop to politically connected south-enders, however, council agreed to see if community fundraising could keep the Burgoyne Woods pool alive. It did. For one summer.

In the fall of 2015, city staff, relying heavily on the recreation master plan, introduced an outdoor aquatic facilities strategy. It suggested a consultant be hired to assess the feasibility of building a new outdoor pool, reinforcing the master plan’s belief that “the location, design and long term feasibility of a significant capital project must be examined thoroughly.”

In March 2016, council adopted the aquatics strategy.

Since then, implementing its elements has been slower than molasses in January in Timmins.

The destination pool concept has not been examined thoroughly, and if council OK’d the hiring of a consultant to determine its feasibility, that decision remains a state secret.

Certainly, no commitment of any kind was made.

Setting aside Shickluna money at this time to build a phantom pool, which has unknown capital and operating costs, would be absurd.

At best, a portion of that cash could fund a feasibility study.

Once the study is completed, one can only hope this council or the next one has the wisdom to judge the project on its merits and operating budget impact, not on pool politics.